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Vuelta a Espana Discussion
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| roturn |
Posted on 27-10-2016 15:23
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No big need to talk about the route itself as you can read it all in more detail in the following thread: https://pcmdaily.c...rowstart=0
What can be said is that it`s a very balanced Vuelta with a third for each terrain, sprinters, puncheurs and climbers with 2 time trials, of which one again is for climbers and one for the flat chrono men.
| Year | 1 | 2 | 3 | | 2015 |  Pluchkin |  Tenorio |  Gesink | | 2014 |  Alarcon | Contador | Tenorio | | 2013 | Tenorio |  Nibali | Contador | | 2012 | Madrazo | Contador | Intxausti | | 2011 | Valverde |  A. Schleck | Rujano | | 2010 | A. Schleck | Intxausti | Gomez Marchante | | 2009 | Mancebo | Gesink | Plaza | | 2008 |  Vinokourov | Gutierrez Catalana | Dekker | | 2007 | Mancebo | Kashechkin | Gomez Marchante |
Seeing at the success in recent years and now also being able to compare it with the 2016 startlist, it`s excellent to see that the 3 recent winners are all starting! In fact only Contador is missing from the full podiums in those editions. Though the veteran is ageing and got passed by several (now better) stage racers.
And as I wrote at the route presentation, Madrazo was quite disappointing in the last couple years here and the manager apparently wanted to get his head free and didn`t send him to his home GT.
A quick look over to the recent Giro and we see quite a few riders doing the double and several of them did very well!
 Pluchkin was announced early to do both races. And after winning the Giro d'Italia, which was his 3rd consecutive GT win and the completion of the triple, he surely aims another Vuelta win!
 Alarcon proved in especially early in the race to be potentially still the best pure climber but lacks the all around skills to beat the best then. Still he was 2nd in the Giro GC and potentially even the very best climber with 3 stage wins as well.
Then a bit further down the favourite list clashing in both GTs, we see  Nibali,  Guldhammer and  Olivier. All just had finished a top10 in the first GT of the year and performed well. A similar result would come handy for them.
Then even further down the list we see the double GT by
 Brambilla
 Keinath
 Bongiorno
 Galta
 Elissonde
Some were close to the top10 actually and will aim similar again. They are all rather young and could still improve in years to come. Though doing the double already now shows their huge value.
Keinath though is riding for Tenorio, Brambilla (yet again) for Gesink (while doing excellent as 2nd rider for Henao Montoya actually).
So we have the main riders, who did both GTs, where we already know what to expect by them. Though we have lots of question marks as well as several top GT riders weren`t doing the double.
First to be named is one of the most complete stage racers. Gesink must love this Vuelta and it`s balanced terrain. Not the very best in the mountains but not far from it. Then easily best puncheur of all favourites and also best time trialist.
Tenorio always must be named as well and seeing he is easily the best home rider here (by far) he is a huge threat for another Vuelta win. He visited all podium spots in the last 3 editions. Definitely a rider knowing how to prepare for the Vuelta.
 Machado is another big name and starting with a wild card to mix up the bigger teams. Same to be said about  Úran. Both riders have high quality and surely aim for the top10 or even more.
 Velits is always a question mark. He can ride well, he can ride shit. You never know with him. His manager surely hopes for a good Vuelta by him. In this field a top10 is a must of course.
Then some young quality riders.  Morton and  Lecuisinier already battled each other in the recent Avenir events. Top10 for both? Quite possible. Even though we already reach the favourite list at the bottom of this area.
And there are also the names of  Van den Broeck or  Quintana. First ageing and later (still?) not as strong as others. So top10 is possible but also needs very good performances.
Outside shots for a top10 but more in (or better a bit behind) the mentioned Olivier/Brambilla/Bongiorno/Keinath group:
 Kudus (who surely is a better bet next year)
Samwel
Bennett
Chamorro
 Kirsch
Nesset
Choi
 Carapaz
In total here an overview:
| Mo | Hi | TT | | Mo | Hi | TT | | Pluchkin | 85 | 75 | 79 | Olivier | 79 | 75 | 69 | | Machado | 84 | 77 | 74 | Bongiorno | 79 | 75 | 68 | | Tenorio | 84 | 76 | 80 | Kudus | 79 | 74 | 70 | | Alarcon | 84 | 73 | 66 | Galta | 79 | 72 | 71 | | Gesink | 83 | 81 | 80 | Samwel | 79 | 70 | 61 | | Velits | 83 | 76 | 75 | Bennett | 78 | 76 | 65 | | Nibali | 82 | 77 | 77 | Chamorro | 78 | 75 | 64 | | Morton | 82 | 76 | 73 | Kirsch | 78 | 74 | 71 | | Úran | 82 | 74 | 78 | Nesset | 78 | 73 | 69 | | Guldhammer | 81 | 77 | 71 | Elissonde | 78 | 73 | 63 | | Lecuisinier | 81 | 75 | 77 | Choi | 78 | 72 | 73 | | Van den Broeck | 80 | 75 | 74 | Kohl | 78 | 72 | 68 | | Quintana | 80 | 74 | 71 | Carapaz | 78 | 70 | 70 | | Brambilla | 79 | 76 | 70 | Vinhas | 78 | 70 | 62 | | Keinath | 79 | 76 | 75 | Campero | 78 | 70 | 69 |
A balanced GT always offers something for sprinters and puncheurs as well. And the field looks quality as well. Different to the Giro the sprinter field is extremely close together and the puncheur field is huge as far more top riders enter the Vuelta.
Sprint trains are of course always a factor hard to judge. But surely Grieg - Eftel with Guarnieri could need yet another few results and have a strong train. Same can be said about Red Bull for Cavendish and Orange for Kennaugh. So the 3 best names on paper could be the main sprinters here.
| Fl | Sp | Acc | | Hi | Mo | Sp | | Cavendish | 73 | 83 | 81 |  Skujins | 83 | 70 | 68 |  Guarnieri | 76 | 82 | 81 |  Ginanni | 83 | 70 | 66 |  Kennaugh | 77 | 82 | 81 |  Van Garderen | 82 | 72 | 70 | | Enger | 73 | 81 | 78 | Sagan | 80 | 74 | 73 |  Roelandts | 75 | 81 | 80 | Lutsenko | 80 | 73 | 72 | | Coquard | 73 | 81 | 83 | Koretzky | 79 | 71 | 71 | | Van der Lijke | 73 | 80 | 79 | Levarlet | 79 | 74 | 63 | | Groenewegen | 71 | 80 | 79 | Boily | 78 | 76 | 68 |  Keukeleire | 72 | 80 | 79 | Juul-Jensen | 78 | 70 | 66 | | Saber | 73 | 79 | 77 | Izagirre | 78 | 74 | 60 | | Chen | 74 | 79 | 78 | Furdi | 77 | 71 | 69 | | Lay | 73 | 79 | 81 |  Zakarin | 77 | 73 | 65 | | Kreder | 73 | 78 | 80 | Bratashcuk | 77 | 71 | 62 | | Haller | 70 | 78 | 77 | Edet | 77 | 70 | 61 | | Merino Criado | 73 | 78 | 80 | Venter | 77 | 74 | 58 |
Last but not least a short overview of the best time trialists (incl. the GT riders here). Though only one flat TT but with a length of 55km a good opportunity:
| TT | | Durbridge | 81 | | Ford | 81 | | Gesink | 80 | | Tenorio | 80 |  Pluchkin | 79 | | Fraile | 79 | | Dempster | 79 | | Úran | 78 | | Nascimento | 78 | | Izagirre | 77 | | Nibali | 77 | | Lecuisinier | 77 | | Grabovski | 77 | | Verona | 77 |
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| dev4ever |
Posted on 27-10-2016 15:34
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Great preview!
Cant wait to see what sort of racing Carapaz will deliver here. 
Pliuchkin GT to lose, again. Cant really see anyone near him here, on the other hand he was definetely touchable in the Giro so who knows. Perhaps Alarcon could 'surprise' again.
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| Roman |
Posted on 27-10-2016 15:36
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Too bad Howard is not on the startlist here. 
Looking not too bad for Velits though, he should be able to score top 10 overall here for sure.
Sagan hopefully some stage hunting - should have some advantage over his rivals in sprint.
Thanks for a nice preview!
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 27-10-2016 15:55
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#2over800
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| Smowz |
Posted on 27-10-2016 15:56
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Right now time for round two ...
Hoping for better sprint results from tha fat Manx bastard this time
Always excited though for GT's - Pluichkin was actually slightly disappointing in the Giro. He should be dominant as he is on paper the GT man of the man-game ... he should be pounding everyones backside and then some. But at Giro he was some vaselined up tentative soal who was taking it easy on a first timer. Time to do some serious banging I would have thought.
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| matt17br |
Posted on 27-10-2016 16:35
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Looking forward to this. The route certainly doesn't suit Aleksandr the great, in fact with all those hills and not nearly as much TT as he could have wanted it's quite a "risk". But when we're talking about Pluchkin and there's no 85 climbers besides him, "risk" is very relative.
That said, this route is indeed Gesink's wet dream I was just noticing, if only he had a decent acceleration I would tip him as the favorite alongside Pluchkin, but I doubt he can be consistent throughout 3 weeks frankly when PCM doesn't like his rider type for GTs and clearly favors the Alarcon-type for a race like this.
What a surprise to see so many tip top puncheurs here, I mean certainly if you're gonna send your puncheur to a GT this has got to be the one, but wow, Skujins, Ginanni, Van Garderen, Sagan, Lutsenko, Koretzky etc. is what you'd expect from a lower tier WT classic! Hilly stages will be on a totally different level from the kinda boring Giro ones.
Decent but not absolutely great sprinters field here too with Cavendish, Guarnieri and Kennaugh in the front lines. In the few sprinters suited stages present they're gonna put up some close battles, along with the likes of Coquard, Roelandts and Keukeleire.
I'm confident this is going to be at least less boring than the Giro with a route that is tailor made to put obstacles in front of the leader day by the day.
Awesome preview roturn!
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| tastasol |
Posted on 27-10-2016 21:22
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Great preview! Not a stacked sprinting field, so should be possible for Guarnieri to get some good resultater. Nowhere near the support he had in the Giro though, so hope we won't make a shitty train. Probably better to jump wheels. First two weeks the important thing here, even though our strongest climber (Levarlet, 74 Mo) is here. Hope for some days inthe breaks. Pluchkin with yet another GT win? I think so.
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| Shonak |
Posted on 27-10-2016 21:25
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PluiPlui the Great deciding to defend Vuelta rather than Tour, hm.. well well.
Edited by Shonak on 27-10-2016 21:43
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
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| knockout |
Posted on 27-10-2016 21:34
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Pluchkin looks like the top favourite once again. The early TT should help him claiming the lead early.
Plenty of riders behind who can all contest for a top 5 - 10.
My own team is completely different to the Giro lineup. I send every good climber I have. The other 8 roster spots are filled with riders who could perform well from breaks or in the hills. I'm glad that Skujins looks to be the strongest puncheur here. Could open up a few chances for stage wins. My expectations is that the team wins at least two stages but I'd also like a stint in the mountain jersey ..
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Mresuperstar |
Posted on 27-10-2016 21:40
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Can't expect much GC-wise with Carapaz. However, looking forward to what TVG can do in the hills and what Fraile and Verona can do in the TTs.
Season goal is a stage win, I think that's certainly possible with our lineup.
Hard to look past Pluchkin for the repeat, but I'm going to go out on a hunch and say Tenorio wins on home soil this year. Call me crazy... 
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| SotD |
Posted on 27-10-2016 21:44
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After having had a hopeless Giro d'Italia I hope it is my turn to have a bit of luck in a Grand Tour.
Georgos Tzortzakis should have done pretty well in the sprints, but didn't. Here I have a top 10 rider for all terrains:
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier shared 10th TT and shared 10th MO.
Bryan Coquard shared 4th SPR.
Clement Koretzky shared 6th HI.
Atleast one stagewin must be possible aswell as fighting for several other stage results.
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier has a decent allround capability of 81/75/77 (MO/HI/TT) and should be capable of doing a low-end top 10 aswell as getting atleast 2nd in the U25 competition (Damn you Morton!). Having Piter Campero (78MO), Yuriy Vasyliv (77MO) and Pavel Potocki (75MO) here as main domestiques he should be alright in performing well. Potocki crashed early out of the Giro so should be ready to fight here. But a young group of riders indeed:
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier - 23 yo
Piter Campero - 25 yo
Yuriy Vasyliv - 23 yo
Pavel Potocki - 23 yo
Bryan Coquard has Marco Haller at his service. So if we need to form a train I suspect that Haller is among the top 5 leadout riders in the peloton (In the preview he is shared 13th best sprinter). Also those are a young duo:
Bryan Coquard - 24 yo
Marco Haller - 25 yo
And finally we have another duo - Our hilly duo, where Clement Koretzky should try to ride on his wave of good results, supported by Alexis Gougeard, whom are still lacking a bit of firepower to be well and truly PT worthy. Yet another group of young guys:
Clement Koretzky - 26 yo
Alexis Gougeard - 23 yo
Can anyone compete with the average age of my team? 24 years of age. Also. 5 riders maxed out this season, 3 will next season. Can anyone beat that?
If we perform like shit, we can always blame lack of routine
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| jph27 |
Posted on 27-10-2016 21:57
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SotD wrote:
Can anyone compete with the average age of my team? 24 years of age. Also. 5 riders maxed out this season, 3 will next season. Can anyone beat that?
Yes. The average age of my entire squad is 24, 7/21 riders maxed out. And that's more difficult to do than just putting together a lineup for a single race 
On a more serious note, looking forward to seeing how the Vuelta plays out. Pluchkin looks like the favourite as ever, but Gesink could be threatening with the hilly stages factored in and then Alarcon and Tenorio are always going to be there or thereabouts. Would also be nice to see Lecuisinier and Elissonde doing well here, for reasons of French solidarity  |
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| knockout |
Posted on 27-10-2016 22:24
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SotD wrote:
Can anyone compete with the average age of my team? 24 years of age. Also. 5 riders maxed out this season, 3 will next season. Can anyone beat that?
Sounds like plenty of experience. I have 6 unmaxed talents here and it is still less than in my TDF line-up
Gotta use those unimportant races for XP hunting 
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 27-10-2016 22:33
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Well... Durbridge won't do a thing here. I also do not really believe in Morton, but obviously we need him after Bobridge didn't deliver in the Ardennes. And please, join some breakaways when it's about time to do so.
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| sgdanny |
Posted on 27-10-2016 22:34
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I do hope the GC will be more impressively worth it for the winner opposite the Giro. Alarcon could well be quite the big bet of sending here. Gesink will not come close to Pluchkin though, so I think we will see the 4th GT win for Aleksandr here.
Got Poljanski wiith the Evonik team here, so will be interesting to see if he can join a break or something and go for a stage win Just hope we won't see another Dall'Oste performer here. The rider I'm most interesting in watching gotta be Lecuisinier, but riders like Tenorio got a lot to prove here. Nibali has got a pretty good year of racing this year even having declined, so the course fits him well too.
Overall it should look to be a good race on paper, but the crashes and the general AI always has a bit of vengeance hiding in the bushes for 21 long days
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| ember |
Posted on 27-10-2016 22:47
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Thank you for a great and informative preview, roturn!
Very excited for this, especially after our poor results in the Ardennes. A top 10 in the GC is a sponsor goal, which should be doable with Guldhammer. On the other hand the competition looks slightly tougher here compared to the Giro, but I do kind of expect him to sneak past a couple of the 82 MO guys. All the hilly stages should also play into his hands, as his hill stat compared with his sprint stat gives me hope of a stage win.
Also have som expectations and hopes for Holst Enger, and I brought Golas here just in case we need to do leadout duties. Hopefully he can continue like he started the Giro, and fight for a couple of top 5, maybe even a podium on the sprint stages.
Obviously Pluchkin's GT to loose, but as matt17br points out, all those hilly stages add an extra element of excitement. Judging by the Giro, all it will take is one bad day for anyone else to claim the overall. Speaking of the GC, it really is a route for Gesink as well. If he can only stay on his bike, a podium should be very possible. The final podium spot is more difficult to predict, Machado and Velits are the two riders I guess will fight it out, but that feels like more of a lottery and very much based on daily form.
Can't wait for this to roll! |
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 28-10-2016 00:09
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Jesper Hansen for the Red Bull hype is back for more!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| roturn |
Posted on 28-10-2016 06:59
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My Vuelta lineup is not as young your yours SotD. Neither as young as for example my Giro lineup.
But still happy with
Olivier 24
Bennett 25
Groenewegen 23
to only name the leaders!
Degand 30, Thurau 28 as helpers higher it a bit though. Others in between a bit younger again.
So hope is on the youngest. |
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| ember |
Posted on 28-10-2016 16:42
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Thank you for a very nice coverage of the first sprint stage, roturn.. Very informative, talking about all the sprinters involved in the front rows and even those further behind as well.
Holst Enger in 5th is definitely promising, especially as it looked like he might have been slightly boxed in as well due to Van der Lijke and Cavendish. Makes me excited for what's to come, as there should at least be two more opportunities in the first week. Maybe even three, depending on how stage 4 plays out.
Congratulations, Crommy! Seems like Roelandts still has it. |
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| jt1109 |
Posted on 28-10-2016 16:42
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Great start by the team Duchesne in the opening break and nearly scooping the U25 jersey now to stay on the front foot throughout is the message to the team |
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